7500 (2019)

Named after the emergency code for a plane hijacking, there's no prizes for guessing the plot of Amazon's cockpit thriller with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as co-pilot Tobias Ellis who begins his shift as normal (with his girlfriend and mother of his child also on the plane as an air stewardess) before things start going awry when the in-flight meals make their appearance part way into their journey from Berlin to Paris.

Terrorists charge the cockpit and although one of them gains access, critically injuring the pilot in the process, Tobias is able to subdue him for the time being, resulting in threats from behind the door from the remaining two terrorists, using passengers as hostages.

It's only ninety minutes long but it passes the time albeit without really adding a huge amount to a genre already overcrowded with terrorists taking control of various forms of public transport, but the decision to set almost the entire film in the cockpit does add a certain amount of claustrophobia to proceedings.

The problem really is that we only vaguely find out about Tobias himself, and the film sells itself on the promise of lengthy moral debate between Tobais and the terrorists which never really materialises. Add this to the fact that there's a cabin full of eighty-five terrified passengers behind the cockpit that we never see, 7500 leaves you a little cold with very little emotional touch points for the viewer to grab hold of.

Although United 93 (2006) had a true story to take from, it's an exercise in how to do this sort of thing superbly, and although 7500 is far from terrible, it's a footnote in the genre rather than a chapter. 6.0/10